


Teach Them Well

by iamthelamp



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-12
Updated: 2016-02-14
Packaged: 2018-05-19 21:40:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 2,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5981806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iamthelamp/pseuds/iamthelamp
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A series of brief interactions between members of the Inquisition and youth who take respective interest in them. "Even in the midst of war, they deserve to be children." A chapter for each character.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Vivienne

**Author's Note:**

> I think Inquisition would've had a better emotional impact if we actually got to meet any of the children affected by the chaos. Kids suffering in the wake of war is painful to watch, especially when there isn't much that can be done about it. Sometimes you can help though, even just a little, and I guess that's what these stories are about. Right now there are twelve chapters planned: one for each companion/advisor, but if anyone requests it, I could also write for others outside that group, like Dagna or Maryden or Dennet or like, literally anyone. No shame if you only read the chapters for your favourites.

Vivienne does _not_  like untrained children. Without restriction, without rules, they all needlessly muddy up freshly tidied floors, sticky fingers on grubbier hands ruining nice fabrics, but when a young girl-- perhaps six?-- approaches her perch at the balcony of Skyhold's main hall, she hears her request.

"Miss, um, would you like to come to my tea party?"

A faint smile swiftly comes to her lips, eyes narrowed inquisitively. She has better things to do than play pretend. The girl senses this, holds up her doll, almost defensively, toes coming together in nervousness.

"Madame Ladyskirts asked me to invite you," she explained to her own feet.

"My dear," the woman says, moving forward, "I can only come if it's a _proper_ tea party."

 

She makes sure it is a proper tea party, despite the water the girl drinks from her cup, because she has not yet acquired a taste for real tea. The toys are gathered and brought to her sitting area, where Vivienne teaches the child idle gossip with Madame Ladyskirts.

"My darling Messere," she gasps to a stuffed bear, hand fluttering to her collarbone in well-feigned shock. "Your bowtie is _months_ out of fashion; it simply won't do." She waves her hand over the dull fabric, magic shifting it to a baby blue cravat. "Much better," she assures both the toy and the girl, who is now grinning widely, a tooth missing from the top row of her smile. "There," she insists, "you're perfectly capable of presenting yourself. No more speaking to your shoes. Do you understand?"

The child nods, smile still bright.


	2. Cassandra

Cassandra notices the young woman's presence far before they acknowledge one another: she is near thirteen, and she spends most days reading a book just outside the room the healer is set up in, right next to where the Seeker takes her frustrations out on the training dummies. Weeks pass, Cassandra with a sword and shield in her hands, the other with a book in the left and one long thick braid twisted through the fingers of the right. Day after day Cassandra does not see fit to pester her, and she does not know what possesses her to do so when she does.

"What are you reading?" she asks in an attempt at friendliness. Pale eyes against darkened skin flicker up to regard her, but the younger lifts the book so the cover is visible.

"Hard in Hightown," she answers.

"Hard in-- aren't you... a tad young for Varric's books?"

The teenager shrugs, marking her place and closing the tome. "My parents used to skip the scary bits. Probably stopped minding when the real world proved even scarier." The phrase was meant to be delivered deadpan, uncaring, but Cassandra could hear the bitterness in the girl's voice as she wound her hand and braid further around one another. So young to be forced into a life as a refugee, to be made so cynical. There was a painful familiarity to it. Cassandra ends the conversation with a suggestion that the girl visit the library in the rotunda, if she likes to read. Perhaps she can find something to bring cheer, instead of further darkness. The girl concludes that she likes this book, but thanks her anyway.

 

The next day, the girl is not there, and Cassandra wonders if she did indeed take her advice, but the next, she returns, worn volume in hand as usual. She doesn't read long before shutting the book determinedly and waiting for a pause from Cassandra.

"How do you do your hair like that?" she postures, and Cassandra falters, because she has been asked many questions in her life, given many answers, but that is not one of them.

"It's just to keep it out of the way," she replies, but the teenager shakes her head.

" _How_ do you do it?" she repeats.

"I... It is similar to yours. But with each part of the braid, you take more from the edges."

The girl is wary, but she stands and approaches the Seeker, single braid wrapped around from the nape of her neck to hang off of her right shoulder, as always. "So my hair could do that too?" she asks, a slender hand tightening around how it was currently done.

"Yes," she confirmed. "I suppose... if you like, I could show you."


	3. Iron Bull

The Iron Bull doesn't know the first damned thing about kids. He hasn't dealt with any since he himself was a child, and sure, he has memories of being tiny, but looking after them? Simply put, and as kindly as possibly put, he is no tamassran, so when this human toddler has taken a liking to excitedly watching the Chargers train, and Krem jokes that he's gained a fan club, and he and half of his company of complete _assholes_ needles him into speaking to the kid, he doesn't actually know what he's doing. Children are just... smaller adults, right? Smaller, more naive adults. Sure.

"You wanna take up a sword, kid?"

The child peers up from his place in the Qunari's shadow, jaw dropped, eyes wide, like Bull is the craziest thing his weird little kid eyes have ever picked up, and hell, maybe he _is._ The sky is torn open, there are demons all over the place, and Douchelord McFadeMage is trying to become a god, but hey, Bull is tall, and he has horns. He knows that's a big deal to people down south.

"Tell you what," he begins when the child remains speechless, reaching to pull his halberd from its holster on his back, "if you can lift my weapon, I'll teach you how to use it." He lays the greataxe on the ground, pommel toward the tiny boy. No way he'll be able to lift the whole thing. Even Qunari children would be hopeless with a full-size weapon when they had only just figured out walking and talking, and by this age they were quite a bit bigger than humans.

 

Obviously the kid fails to lift it, but the crestfallen expression is too much for him to take on the tiny little boy's tiny little face, and before he even knows it, he has offered this child the opportunity to ride on his shoulders, clambering around on his horns while he walks back over to the Chargers still easing out of their practice: stretching, getting some water, just relaxing, whatever they do individually. Unfortunately, Bucky up there gets cocky on the walk over, and stupidly enough, falls from his perch. Krem, for one, looks absolutely horrified, especially comparing to the amused look this had replaced.

"Chief!" he scolds, half standing to see if the boy is alright, but Bull puts a hand up.

"It's fine!" he insists. "Kids are sturdy!" At least, he hopes they are. Sure would be a shame to have to return the news to the parents-- wherever they are-- if it's dead. Sure enough however, the man turns, and the child is behind him on the ground, giggling, arms up to beg for another go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you've seen that Vine of the little kid on a playground grabbing the firepole but then just dropping to the ground like a weight, and laughing in bewilderment when the camera angles to him on the ground, that's the same sort of thing I was going for. Mind you, I am a teacher. I work with children. They are strange creatures. Bull is not incorrect.


	4. Leliana

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seems these just keep getting longer as I write them. Not sure if I should try to aim for the shorter ones or just let the writing happen. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯

Leliana feels as though she is being watched. She is always on her guard, but here, at her desk, she should not feel paranoid: it is a hazard to her work. Something has to have been causing this feeling for the past few days. Perhaps an agent gave her faulty information? There will always be mistakes, or otherwise, there will always be traitors. These days she is more inclined to assuming the latter.

But no. She has checked over every report from the last week twice, cross-referenced where applicable, checked out every potential source of her nervous hunch, and nothing. Everything seems perfectly in order, and not even in the too-perfectly-in-order way that tipped her off to setups in the past. Is she losing her mind? After all this, all she has been through, all she survived? A last ditch effort to clear her anxiousness has her checking through the boxes on her level for a weapon, a note, anything--

A child. A small elven boy who claps his hand over his mouth at having been caught. The Nightengale grabs the collar of his tunic sharply. She will not harm him if it can be helped, but if he has been listening in on conversations, Maker _knows_ all he has learned. If the Venatori have taken to using children in the hopes to avoid retribution... She stops that line of thought, feeling all the sicker for having thought it.  
"What are you doing here," she demands. The boy is frozen, terrified. Acting? Or real?  
"I was just-- nothing, I swear!"  
"I'll need a better excuse than that."  
The poor boy stammers, but Leliana can't dare flinch. Better one possibly innocent boy be brought to tears than to accidentally free an enemy spy.  
"How long have you been here?"  
"Well-- I mean, _h-here,_ a few weeks, b-but I only came up to the rookery the past couple days, I swear!"  
"The past couple--!?" Leliana sputters, glaring at the boy. Her paranoia, her sense of being watched: it was all him. "Explain yourself."  
"I just thought it might be fun!" the child cries, really beginning to look as though he might soil himself. Clearly not worth whatever cheap thrills he expected. "Or I might learn something about what's happening! We haven't heard news, I thought someone might know where that monster is, or..."

The image of the terrified boy finally breaks through her caution. He is afraid, as everyone is. Knowledge is a comfort. A weapon. She knows this better than anyone. Her fingers loosen from his fabric and slip back into her own personal space. "What you've heard in the last few days were all minor assignments to scouts and agents," she explained. "Hardly the information you were looking for."  
The child doesn't move. He is scrawny, even for an elf, probably not as well fed as a growing boy should be, but there is only so much they can do for refugees. "Are you... are you going to tell my father?"  
She sighs, shoulders heavy. Why add to the boy's troubles? "No. How _old_ are you?"  
"Nearly eleven, ser. Come Wintermarch."  
A _ten-year-old_ managed to evade her for _days._  Maker's Mercy, she needs to get more sleep. "We don't know where Corypheus is," she tells him. "But for now, Skyhold is safe. We intend to keep it that way." She gestures for him to move in front of her, toward the stairwell. When he does, she leads him down into the library. "You will not go sneaking around again up there," she orders. "There is no greater danger to you than having information you do not understand."  
The boy nods hurriedly, apologies and 'yes ser's and other niceties spilling from his lips.  
"Several years from now," she continues, "it will be just as dangerous. But you will be allowed to make your own decision."  
The boy hesitates, but understands. If perhaps, when the time comes, he still likes sneaking about, he can come to her.  
"Maker keep you," she fares well softly with a nod, gently turning him by the shoulder to bid him go back to his family, before turning herself and making her way back up the steps.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't quite as squishy as the other chapters, but I feel like Leliana is too guarded (especially before The Left Hand of The Divine quest) to be terribly squishy. The boy's got talent, but she won't take his childhood from him.


	5. Dorian

Dorian has fond memories galore of his early years: studying with Alexius quickly became his favourite thing to do as a young man coming into his abilities, though now the sense of nostalgia does little more than make him crave a drink. He visited the unseated magister a few times after the Inquisitor's almost-too-merciful sentence of further research, but he has very little intention of yet more painful interaction with the shell of his former patron, improved as Alexius is since the fiasco at Redcliffe. No no, Altus Dorian Pavus is perfectly happy to conduct his own studies without broken shards of his past cutting his hands open.

This independence proves another obstacle for the boy who wishes to speak with him. Dorian notices the young man, but chooses to politely ignore his staring before too long.  
"I do know I'm quite the sight," he says, not even looking away from the shelves he is perusing today, "but perhaps you would do better to take a sketch. I daresay it will last longer." Especially at this rate, he thinks bitterly. He's going to die here. So many people have died here.  
The boy straightens up, taking a steadying breath. "I was at Redcliffe."  
"Were you now." The boy sounds defiant, and surely, Dorian supposes, aims to cast blame on him.  
"You're from Tevinter," he continues. "A magister."  
The indeed Tevinter drops his shoulders with an exasperated sigh, turning to the other. Here we go. "I am a mage," he confirms, "but that alone does not make me a member of the magisterium. Perhaps if southerners opened any veritable books on the Imperium instead of taking whatever the Chantry forces down your throat at face value, you would know that."  
The boy falls quiet. He wears apprentice robes, Dorian notices: not even old enough to have been through the Circle's rite of proper mages.  
"I... apologise. Your upbringing is no fault of yours." Dorian knows this better than most. He looks to the shelves again.  
"I lost a bet with the other apprentices," he admits. "I have to ask you about the Imperium."  
His eyebrows quirk upward. Of course they would be betting on such trivial things as who has to approach the Tevinter mage. "And what are the terms of your loss?"  
"I..." A hand flies to rub the other arm, blush creeping across the young man's cheeks. "Ellie said if I don't, I have to put ice in my smalls and wait for it to melt."  
Dorian cannot hold back the sympathetic sound that escapes him, even as he is sure that somewhere nearby he can hear the snickering of the boy's peers. Truly, children are cruel. And creative. He seats himself in his favourite armchair by the window. "Quite the risk. What if I had been terrible? Refused to speak to you? You're lucky I'm so amiably charming."

The boy seems nervous, but endlessly relieved as Dorian answers a number of his questions about the magisterium and members of it, the differences in the Circles and the Templar Order from the one he knows, the Old Gods, the slave trade, and of course, blood magic.  
"A word of advice:" The elder stops the boy by the shoulder when he makes to take his leave. "Don't make any further bets with this Ellie of yours. She sounds like a piece of work, and I won't always be able to save your skin."  
The boy chuckles, discomfort long gone. "I won't, messere. I've learned my lesson."  
"Good man."


End file.
